After Ashley Madison Hack, Police in Toronto Detail a Global Fallout

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A spokesman for the Toronto Police Service said that the company behind the website Ashley Madison was offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of the site’s hackers.CreditCreditMelissa Renwick/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press

Canadian officials are bracing for long-term fallout from the unauthorized release of user data from the adultery website Ashley Madison, they said at a news conference on Monday.

Bryce Evans, the acting staff superintendent of the Toronto Police Service, detailed the investigation into hackers’ attack last week on Canada-based Avid Life Media, which owns Ashley Madison and Established Men, a website for wealthy men looking to date young women.

Mr. Evans characterized the hack, carried out by a group that calls itself the Impact Team, as “one of the largest data breaches in the world.” The 9.7 gigabytes of information released by the hackers included credit card information, names, billing details and home addresses. Mr. Evans said the hacking had already resulted in spinoff crimes, including attempts to extort Ashley Madison users whose identities had been leaked.

“If you would like to prevent me from sharing this dirt with all of your known friends and family (and perhaps even your employers too?) then you need to send exactly 1.05 bitcoins to the following address,” read one of the threats, asking for about $230.

Mr. Evans also said that the police have received two unconfirmed reports of suicides related to the data breach. Security experts had warned the revelations contained in the breach could lead to suicide and violence.

“Others might find the thought that their membership of the site — even if they never met anyone in real life, and never had an affair — too much to bear,” Graham Cluley wrote on his security blog last week, “and there could be genuine casualties as a result. And yes, I mean suicide.”

The warning contrasted with how casually the hackers characterized the breach: “Embarrassing now, but you’ll get over it,” the group wrote in one general, public warning to those it might have exposed.

Soon after the hack, journalists worked to expose the activity of people who may have used the service.

Well-known conservative personalities were caught in the breach as well. Sam Rader, a religious YouTube user who operates a successful video blog with his wife, Nia, was found to have an account.

“She has forgiven me for this mistake that I made in opening the account,” Mr. Rader said of his wife over the weekend. “I have sought forgiveness from God and he has forgiven me, so I have been completely cleansed of this sin.”

“I have been the biggest hypocrite ever,” Mr. Duggar said in a statement last week, acknowledging his activity. “Please pray for my precious wife Anna and our family during this time.”

In the news conference, the police detailed how users were targeted in an attack that began July 12, when employees of Avid Life Media arrived at work. When the employees opened their laptops, they were met with the song “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC, and an accompanying message demanding that Avid Life shutter both websites.

“This event is not an act of hacktivism, it is an act of criminality,” the company said in a statement last week. The identities of Established Men users have not been leaked. Avid Life Media is offering a $500,000 award for information leading to the arrest of the people behind the hack, the police said on Monday.

And sites advertising services to allow the public to search the leaked database or to delete profiles are loaded with malware, officials warned.

Speaking directly to the hackers, Superintendent Evans said that Monday’s news conference was “your wake-up call,” and that law enforcement organizations around the world were working together to stop hackers from engaging in “reckless and illegal activity.” The United States Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are involved in the investigation.

“You just got to understand people, the social impact behind this leak,” he said. “We’re talking about families, we’re talking about their children, we’re talking about their wives, we’re talking about their male partners. That’s going to have impacts on their lives, we now have hate crimes that are a result of this.”